• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.154-169
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• 2008

Geography textbooks often have treated the world as a collection of independent nations. Also, many scholars have warned of ethnocentric bias in geography textbooks. Global education that emphasizes world interdependence and pursues global perspectives offers some possibilities to go beyond the status quo of current World Geography textbooks. The primary objective of this study is to analyze current US World Geography textbooks in terms of global education. A secondary objective is to explore a framework for rereading World Geography textbooks critically. This interpretive qualitative case study indicates that US World Geography textbooks maintain an imperialist and American-centered perspective. Especially, the case of Korea shows that other places and people are underrepresented through dichotomy, negative attitude and exclusion, misconception and stereotyping, and simplification in textbooks. Therefore, we need to detect conscious and unconscious fallacy and bias, to understand the world view and experiences of underrepresented people, and to deal with controversial global issues from diverse perspectives through global perspectives and post-colonial perspectives of global education.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.2
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• pp.297-309
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• 2012

This study examines how East Asia is represented in US World Geography textbooks and what kind of cultural and political epistemological frameworks are embedded in those representation focused on China and Japan. For this, four World Geography textbooks that widely used in public middle school throughout the State of Connecticut are selected as the major units of analysis and analyzed using content analysis. The results are as follows. First, The textbooks have the cultural epistemological framework that East Asia are portrayed not only as homegenous and static world but also as exotic world whose mode of life is quite different from that the West. Second, China are represented as having more traditional and negative images, whereas Japan are portrayed as receiving more modern and positive images in the textbooks. This difference is caused by the relationship between the U.S. and them and imply that the epistemological framework on East Asia of American can change according to the relationship between the U.S. and East Asia. Third, the textbooks seem to be dominated by colonialism epistemological framework that emphasize hierarchical order between the U.S. and East Asia and omit East Asian countries' contribution to global cultures and economies as political epistemological framework. These findings suggest the need to investigate the epistemological frameworks underlying World Geography textbooks used Korean classroom about neighbor Asia or non-Western societies.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.182-200
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• 2010

This study aims to review the problem of East Asia notation and location in the world geography textbook. Major findings from this study are follows. First, Eastern Asia is used to denote the area where the Korea, China and Japan are located in world geography textbook, while Eastern Asia area covers Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, and Mongolia on the map. Second, East Asia is appeared in textbook from the 2th national curriculum, as a cultural region shares same cultural tradition. It is recommended that East Asia might be the suitable place name to designate Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia can be use for the area where Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan and Mongolia are located.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.153-168
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• 2003

Since 1945, geography textbooks of South Korea and North Korea have been developed differently. Taking both geography textbooks of South Korea(printed in 1996 and 1997) and them of North Korea(printed in 1995), this study compares and analyse geography textbooks of South and North Korea systematically, then to show their likeness and difference. Results of this study are as follows: First, Most of contents in South Korean textbooks consist of explations and many tables, graphs and photographs leading to inquiry activities, whereas those in North Korean textbooks consist of mostly sentences that explain topics, diagrams and sketches. Second, Geographical education in South Korea puts strong emphasis on human geography and regional geography, whereas that in North Korea does strong emphasis on physical geography, economic geography and education of cartography. Third, The geographical words of South Korean textbooks contain words written in Chinese character and words of English origin, whereas Those of North Korean textbooks do many pure Korean words.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.75-92
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• 1996

Geography education is one of the best ways to improve the understanding of other countries. By analyzing Korean and Japanese textbooks on world geography, I tried to find out how well they explain the other country and to set forth guiding principles for geography education. To achieve these aims, weight analysis are used. The major findings in this study can be summarised as follow. The contents of Korean and Japanese geography textbooks were analyzed deviding into 2 major topics, 6 minor topics, and 20 key concepts. (1) By analyzing Korean geography textbook of the 5th curriculum the weight percentages which had been given to each minor topics were found. They are as follow: resource problem(57.7%), human right problem(21.4%), population problem (9.0%), mutual dependence(6.0%), environmental problem(3.3%), international competition(2.6%). (2) By analyzing Korean geography text-book of the 6th curriculum the weight percentages which had been give to each minor topics were found. They are as follow: resource problem(42.7%), human right problem(21.7%), mutual dependence (20.9%), environmental problem(7.7%), population problem(4.6%), international competition(2.4%) (3) By analyzing Japanise geography text-book of 5th curriculum ammendment the weight percentages which had been give to each minor topics were found. They are as follows: resource problem(49.9%) human right problem(21.7%), mutual dependence(15.5%), population problem (7.1%), international competition(6.2%), environmental problem(3.8%) (4) By analyzing Japanise geography textbook of 6th curriculum ammendment the weight percentages which had been give to each minor topics were found. They are as follows human right problem (31.6%), mutual dependence(22.8%), resource problem(20.7%), population problem(12.7%), environmental problem(8.6%), international competition(3.6%). We can see that in the field of dependence Korea and Japan put the similar weight but in the field of common problem they put the fairly different weight. It can be viewed as the difference of curriculum. That is to say Korea used both the systematic method on the basis of unit but Japan used only topical method on the basis of unit. Therefore Korean geography textbook introduce agriculture, forestry, fishery, mining industry and manufacturing industry. Japanese textbook, however gives a detailed account about residents' lives in specific area. For that reason in Korean textbook, resource was stressed, while in Japanese textbook, culture was stressed.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.409-424
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• 2004

This study examines Korean-related description from 1931 to 2002 in 18 university-level ‘World Regional Geography’ textbooks, being published as English. During this period, the amounts of Korean-related contents in world regional geography textbooks have gradually increased. The main Korean-related topics were generally ‘Colonization by Japan’, ‘Korean War’, ‘Rapid economic development in South Korea’, and ‘North Korea’. The distorted information and erroneous description about Korea were mostly found in textbooks. The national and cultural identity of Korea was severely distorted and made a fallacy by ‘accidental-centered’ thought. It is suggested that foreign geographers who refer ‘Korea’ in World Regional Geography textbooks need to critically re-examine the ways in which Korean-related contents are in proper place.

• Korean Journal of Comparative Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.213-238
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• 2017

This paper aims to point out that the contemporary textbook is a common cognitive construct, and that the realistic drawings in the textbooks have played an important role in shaping the world recognition. The main subjects of this study are the racial-ethnic illustrations of elementary school geography textbooks, published by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the Japanese Government-General of Taiwan and Korea, the educational association of Manchu. By comparing the same factors in various textbooks, it examines how the temporal and spatial recognition of the world is adjusted by visual representation. The main findings of this study are three fold. First, the world was introduced to the extent of the sum that the census and the classifications of racial and ethnic groups were adopted. And the world appeared later in the year supported by the racial and ethnic minorities. Second, the expressive style of racial and ethnic groups changed from an emphasis on a heterogeneous part as an object of scientific observation in the early stage to a later one with a life culture similar to the reader. Third, racial ethnic illustrations have been used differently depending on the publishing region in the Empire, giving readers in different regions with different images of the same category. In many cases, it was possible to know the politics of representation and the use of certain racial ethnic illustrations. The textbooks of the first half of the 20th century gave great recognition to the people who could not meet with the readers by using the illustrations. A child in the mainland is aware of his position in a "viewing position" while viewing various empire people through the textbook. On the other hand, in the textbooks of the colonial children, they stood in the position of 'being seen', and showed a change in internalizing the position of the mainland along with the expansion of the empire.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.607-619
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• 2005

For the Unification of Koreas in the future, we need to understand the geography education system of North Korea. This paper deals with the middle-school geography textbooks of North Korea, published in 2000 and as well as in 1990, in order to look for a better way of geography education after the Unification. One geography textbook is used for each grade, respectively, from the first to the fifth grade of the North Korea's middle-school (table 1). The North Korea's geography textbooks are immersed in the unreasonable idolization of the Kim's family and the excessive devotion to the socialist system. But they may suggest a significant implication in the improvement of geography terminology in South Korea because of their common use of genuine Korean words.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.747-763
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• 2013

Books on world geography, so called "萬國地誌" had an important influence on changing Koreans' views of the world and the nation through the introduction of new world geographical knowledge during the period of modern enlightenment(1894~1910). "小學萬國地誌" was published in 1895 by Hakbu as an early world geography textbook. This study sought to discuss the significance and influence of "小學萬國地誌" by focusing on its contents organization and description style. The findings are as follows. The six regional contents organization adopted the modern regional geographical method by regional scale classification, describing the human geography based on the physical geography, comparing regional characteristics or studying the relationship between human and the nature. In addition, this textbook was written using the kukhanmun style that displays several characteristics of modern printing culture. Many geographical names were written in Korean characters and geographical knowledge was accepted actively from the modern world, subsequently contributing to the generalization of geographical knowledge. This textbook led to the transition of the Koreans' worldview from a China-centric focus by providing practical and specific knowledge about the world, toward the Korean modernization based on the multiple ideologies of social Darwinism and the advent of enlightenment, imperialism and nationalism.

• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.93-104
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• 2016

High school textbooks of world geography show geomorphic featuresin arid environments such as sand dune, yardang and ventifact which are largely created by aeolian processes. Desert pavements, ubiquitous armored surfaces composed of a mosaic of clasts in hot and arid regions, are introduced as a major landform which can be attributed to wind erosion. However, they are formed by a variety of processes including deflation, surface runoff, upward clast migration and dust accretion that cause coarse particles concentration at the surface. The deflation by wind leaving a lag of coarse clasts has been solely regarded at home, even though the classical mechanism of deflation has been evaluated as a relatively unimportant process of pavement formation abroad through empiricalstudies. The accretionary model is gaining wider acceptance, thus implying that desert pavements could be formed through deposition of aeolian material. In addition, sheetflood and upward migration of clasts, irrelevant to the aeolian processes, could also create stone pavements. As a consequence, the deflation process in high school textbooks has to be urgently modified into a range of processes including aeolian mantling. By stressing that desert pavements are an exceptional geomorphic feature in deserts where wind is a predominant geomorphic agent, they can be used as a good example to demonstrate that a landform is not monogenetic.